What is a "Super Chinese" character set? The main link goes to a machine translated article that makes for good post-modern poetry, but I don't have a clue why Super Chinese is better than internationally standard character sets. Does it bound tall monitors in a single scroll wheel flick or what?
Actually, I would suspect you would have to get pretty rip roaring drunk to get any action from a RealDoll. Drunk enough your dignity leaves the state.
And yes, I count myself as one (going back to The Bards Tale on the C64). The problem with RPG games is the amount of effort that goes into the writing of the story, generation of massive areas to explore and scripting complex game events. That last one is a killer, because we all want non-linear gameplay, but what that really means is that the developer has to write extra content that only *some* people will ever see.
For all that effort, the game is placed in a channel with a very small market footprint. Sports (including racing) and (first|third) person shooter/platform console games now rule the because they are easy to communicate to the market, and there is a market waiting to buy them. Think of how many parents who have purchased consoles for the kiddies, and are responsible for buying the game. Imagine them browsing the store shelves. Only the most dumbed down concept and straight forward message is going to make it through. "Hey, lets buy Timmy a football game."
So something like Planescape Torment, which is one of the great RPGs of the modern PC era, is completely beyond most of the market. It offends parts of the market simply by context (a game played in the realm of the gods? Pagans!) and it has an appropriately ugly box cover of the Unnamed One. You can't install Torment as a "demo" in the store, because most people would see a static isomorphic view with no action, and walk on past.
Console RPG makers learned long ago that you have to sacrifice integrity to move product. Thus console RPGs have "over the top" limit break moves, FMV of sexy anime babes and leveling treadmills that makes the D&D system look tame.
Thoughtful storylines probably should take refuge in books. The era of the gaming geek being the majority gamer is over, and so the market follows the money. All I can hope is that a few publishers will weather the storm and be willing to sell to the niche. Of course, if you want worse, you should check the health of my other favorite type of game: the turn base strategy game. Thank goodness for game boy SP: without it, that style would be extinct.
Critial point: get dressed for work. I work from home (have for the last three years) and I wear my buisiness casual clothes. On days that I haven't changed, I find my focus is off. It also lets me get back into jeans at the end of the day, signifying the end of the work. There is something about clothing that can set the tone. Likewise, you need a different routine on "days off" than on days, otherwise it all blurs.
My main client is 125 miles away, so I only go onsite every other week, but it is a refreshing change, even if all we do is meetings.
Actually, I read it without edits, including the poorly executed singing. I read with character voices, and sadly mangle the already poor lyrics due to a lack of higher elvish education. That said, my comment was an attempt to get the hopeless "but they removed obscure reference 234 subsection a, paragraph 23" people to realize that the work they love is 45 hours long in totality. The fact that we are given extended versions that bring the movies up to 12 hours is an astounding tribute to the love being poured into the movies. But even at twelve hours, *something* has to give. (The "mass market" releases mean *more somethings* have to give). I'm just thankful a true fan of the works has handled the compression, and not someone who would have used cliff notes to render a 3 hour version of the full trilogy, wherein Frodo would have ended the movie in hand to hand combat with Sauron, and Gollum would have been a furry.
Gather round, for the true reason parts were cut from the book to the movie. You see, I read each book to my son before the movie comes out. At approximately 30 minutes a night, it takes a month plus to read *one* of the three books. That's 15 hours per book. Now I grant that a few pages of "majestic mountain description" can be cut down to a flight over some real ones in the movie, but on the other hand, some of the action takes longer on screen than in text (especially describing the inner state of a character, which in film must be *shown* not spoken).
Personally, I don't have the bladder control for a fifteen hour movie. Yes, now you know the real reason for cutting the film to three hours (four for those in the comfort on their own homes). Bladder control. Simple really.
I wonder if there is any way of "busting" urban myths. Even after I send people to various urban legend sites to combat the more annoying email variety, it seems some people are just credulous or just want a good story to tell. I suspect that the reality of it is irrelevant, and busted or not, the same stories with be with us for a very long time.
XBox was Microsoft's experiment to see how much of the living room they could potentially grab. They have the resources to pour into loser consoles for another generation with the larger goal of making something similar to the PSX (the PS2 with integrated Tivo functionality, etc). Frankly, I think the PSX is being made to simply prove that Microsoft is going to be behind in that space as well, considering it's price is a bit high for the consumer space.
Imagine you have a machine behind this thing that makes a SOAP call periodically to update some data. Boy, isn't it exciting to think about the new failure mode they just introduced? Port 80 now goes to belkin and possible provides the contents of your SOAP call to them?
The guy from Verisign get a new job after being fired over the DNS wildcards???
You missed the point. The few people who are behind firewalls today in homes and small business are there because the NAT device *includes* a cheap firewall.
I have had very little luck convincing people and companies to purchase firewalls on the security only front. People are stupid when assessing risk.
However, show a company or user how they can run many computers off on one connection, and it happens to include some security, and they go for it. Your suggestion to "provide these users with a firewall" doesn't fly in the reality of a user base that would prefer to pinch pennies and clean up the mess later.
I have made it a requirement that my clients use a firewall if I will be responsible for any administrative tasks. It's lost me a few customers, but then they aren't the ones I want if they are that clueless. Apparently, from the impact of some of the recent worms, not many consultants are adamant about these things. So I appreciate any "accidental" security that happens.
Anime allows storytellers to explore sci-fi and fantasy genres without the budget breaking special effects, so they are common to see those genres expressed. But that isn't all that is done in the anime tradition. At the other end of the scale you can find sitcoms and love stories. Studio Ghibli is another great entry point into the style:
http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/films/
Just about anything here is good, but Kiki's Delivery Service and Spirited Away are two of my favorites. Kiki's has fantasy only insomuch as Kiki is a witch, but the storyline (something which American entertainment has forgotten about) is one of coming to terms with oneself.
Grave of the Fireflies is one of the most heart wrenching stories ever told in any style.
As for the overweight white guys: they are called otaku (fanboy) and are a part, but not the whole, of those who love the style. I'm in my mid thirties, married with a son, own my own company, am part owner of another and rock climb so I don't *get* fat. Not all those who watch anime are otaku.
To finally answer your question: animation allows for stories that would be difficult to tell in another way without breaking a budget. It also allows for artistic expression and styles that can't be captured with a camera. If American animators were blinded by the "for children only" mindset, amazing stories could be told here as well.
The Simpsons and the other "adult" cartooning have raised the bar a hair, but it only raises it to "sitcom" from "child humor". I would love to see an home grown cartoon that explored storylines written as well as those in good anime. (And no, Heavy Metal's psuedo porn doesn't count).
I love the original ghost because it convinces many who didn't think they would like anime that it isn't "just a cartoon". Although today anime is becoming "cool", when I was in high school it was pretty fringe. When ghost came out, I showed it to quite a few people who didn't know what anime was, and most had a much better appreciation for the fact that "cartoons" could tell a compelling story.
IP shortages forcing the creation of NAT actually turned out to be a good thing.
NAT has created the opportunity that most private boxes can be operated behind the integrated firewall that is normally provided by such devices. If the cable companies would provide the cable modem with NAT and modest firewalling instead of assigning public addresses to the uninformed masses, many of the recent insecurities would be *much* less critical.
In the best possible world, everyone would be running public addresses behind a properly configured firewall, with security patches addressed in a timely manner.
In the *real* world, we have unpatched machines directly accessible with little hope they will be addressed. I wish the NAT bashers would settle down. No, NAT and weak firewalls are not secure... but they are an order of magnitude better than hanging the clueless out in the wind like is currently done.
Those who moan about not being able to run the services they want should really learn about port mapping.
Of course, my cable company recently decided I can't even *send* to port 25 anymore, except for the cable company server... that has nothing to do with IP allocation or NAT. It has *everything* to do with the problem addressed above... if the company would supply a NAT box with firewalling, they could do the firewalling of 25 at the users computer, and the user could open an additional server without compromising the integrity of the Internet at large with virus laden beasts.
IP 6 will mean even more machines without even weak firewalls, meaning a more vulnerable environment for those without the clue to buy a firewall.
Actually, I have no problem with the God Formula Big Bang theory... but the earlier discussion was the "Intelligence Directed" evolution, which is different from "Initial Rules" evolution. I don't believe in a meddler. Either God is all seeing and can create the universe right in the first place, or he vanishes in a puff of logical smoke.
This was what triggered the comment, although I admit it was poorly executed due to timing. Science is the application of a critical eye to everything, including the currently held concepts. But more than that, it proves its worth by providing predictions, and then having those predictions proven or disproved. Neither is worse than the other: a disproved theory is still progress in science.
If you are watching The Elegant Universe on PBS, you will see that the primary argument against the string theorists is that they theories they propose contain no testable (in the reasonable future) concepts. What made Einstein so amazing was he came up with the consequences for the rules of gravity and light virtually out of whole cloth in his head. But his theory made predictions: if they had proved wrong, he would be barely a footnote.
Creationists refuse to submit to the rigors of prediction and testing. If evolution predicts there should be an animal of characteristic X in the record, finding it after such a prediction helps bolster the theory. Working with fruit flys and bacteria have allowed many of the concepts of evolution to be tested, and have help refine the theory. Creationists point to a book and a failed understanding of complexity theory, with little else to stand on. That attitude, in the guise of being "scientific" infuriates me.
You are correct. I almost deleted the last part but I hit submit while running out the door to pick up my son. Normally those kinds of stupid comments get edited out before then.
Thank you for that. Gradual transitions are pretty much accepted by science, and don't require miracles: something moderately useful can be selected for and adapted to high complexity very quickly *on the geological scale*. The difference from jumper to glider to flight isn't as big as the theologists would like you to believe. Good grief, we have flying fish, flying squirels and flying snakes. None of them actually fly (they glide) but if such diverse animals can independently become airborn, then it isn't much of a trick.
Similarly, the eye is often brought up as "but it wouldn't work if all the parts weren't there". Light sensitivity is useful unto itself, and the individual steps are simple once you have light sensitivity. Shutters for the light sensitive areas? Optical concentration of light? Each can be created independently, but surely those who get the combinations right are more "fit".
Of course, creationists come from the same school of thought as radical religionists everywhere: "don't think, don't make progress and whatever you do, don't argue with us. God told us were right."
I did have to ask myself what the heck they were talking about. I guess a lot of XBox owners are further reducing the cost of the conversion project by boarding trucks while in traffic and absconding with Maxtor drives.
The main problem I had when I received this is they seem to be really focused on the "Enterprise" aspect of this. I am a happy subscriber to the update service with a handful of servers. However, none of these boxes are really "servers" in the heavy duty use sense. We use them as firewalls, and one as a light duty PHP/mysql/web server for doing bug tracking, design documents, etc for the developers.
Under the old scheme, I was able to purchase the low end version and run it as a light duty web server. Now, looking at the product mix, it looks like they are taking the Microsoft 'your workstation isn't a web server' approach to stratification.
You hit the nail on the head when you mention Excel as a programming environment. Because the environment determines order of evaluation for you, you have a declarative language, and I think in the long run that is the key.
Procedural programming runs into complexity limits much more quickly, because the programmer is responsible for all of the interactions explicitly. Excel allows business people to work in their domain, using ideas that make sense because they were extracted from the domain. With the excessive computing power found on modern computers, the inefficiencies of declarative syntax can be accepted. A good example is SQL - a very small query can produce a very complex query plan and execute in a timely manner with today's databases. Because the core language is declarative, I can write a very complex query which would require pages of code to be written in a procedural language. Of course, there are limitations, and so you don't normally find SQL alone. Instead, you find it wrapped in a procedural language.
Similarly, you often find Excel spreadsheets with macros, with the macros performing the role of the procedural wrapper language for SQL. I believe the current ultimate expression of "ease of programming" is when you can create a custom declarative language in a domain (financial calculations, data access, etc) and then add some simple tools for sequencing the declarative actions.
Programs could then be written by domain specific users, and glued together with some high level interface code. In some ways, this is what Microsoft is trying to achive with Office for Developers tools: you build databases in SQL Server, do data entry and simple reporting via Access (which makes banging up an interface to data cake) or web forms, use analytical services for complex reporting, Excel for simple financial presentations (particularly for graphing), crystal reports for end user reporting, word for mail merge and formatting, IIS for web presentation of documents (either created on the fly in ASP or via SharePoint), etc.
In a preverse way, this is the old Unix "small tools, chained together" philosophy, except each tool is a swiss army knife with a chain saw attached. However, the correctness of the observation that chaining special purpose tools still remains valid, and valuable.
However, there are also major problems with this approach as described above. Especially when Office is updated: all your hard work scripting needs to be reviewed and revised because nearly every program will break something, somewhere.
I really doubt that MMORPGs will ever become mainstream, at least not the UO, Everquest, combat heavy ones. Having programmed MUDs back in the day, these exact discussions came up all the time, and the reality is that there are many flavors of gamers, and different games will appeal to different subsets. However, the "mainstream" gamer just flat out doesn't have time or interest to invest in a MMORPG.
I did have some hope that the Sims might be innovative enough to pull in the casual gamer, but it didn't happen. It appears that the "casual" gamer is happier with a chat window they can minimize when their boss/spouse/parent/etc walks by more than they want a full screen gui. Why? Because casual gamers see right trough the "game" (which doesn't interest them) and realize instinctively that this is a very attractive chat room.
Puzzle Pirates frankly has more hope because it plays on the favorite things of the casual gamer. Chatting and simple puzzle games. Popcap + AIM. Most "hardcore" gamers would prefer to be kneecapped than be caught playing something like that though, so I doubt the gaming press will see it for what it is.
While I admit is is an early version, it appears pretty clunky. All proposed edits are simply placed in a vote list... this means that votes have to be taken quickly to prevent different useful edits from being unable to merge.
Something more like CVS would be useful, where you can have different edits on different areas going at the same time, and the vote process could merge them together. Then again, perhaps for text that isn't as useful as code. But without such a feature, it's hard to call this "massive" collaborative documents, as the pending change list could easily spiral out of control.
This will have about as much impact as the talking coke machines and verbal notifications in cars: they will be vandalized or torn out. I can see some modest value in a display that shows where related items are, being a guy who doesn't go shopping often. I might actually use it. My wife who seems to have memorized the incoherent ordering would be annoyed I suspect. (Who is it who decides that bread and tortilla products are unrelated? That whipped cream *isn't* a dessert topping, fit to be displayed with all the others.)
Slashdot Mirror
What is a "Super Chinese" character set? The main link goes to a machine translated article that makes for good post-modern poetry, but I don't have a clue why Super Chinese is better than internationally standard character sets. Does it bound tall monitors in a single scroll wheel flick or what?
Actually, I would suspect you would have to get pretty rip roaring drunk to get any action from a RealDoll. Drunk enough your dignity leaves the state.
And yes, I count myself as one (going back to The Bards Tale on the C64). The problem with RPG games is the amount of effort that goes into the writing of the story, generation of massive areas to explore and scripting complex game events. That last one is a killer, because we all want non-linear gameplay, but what that really means is that the developer has to write extra content that only *some* people will ever see.
For all that effort, the game is placed in a channel with a very small market footprint. Sports (including racing) and (first|third) person shooter/platform console games now rule the because they are easy to communicate to the market, and there is a market waiting to buy them. Think of how many parents who have purchased consoles for the kiddies, and are responsible for buying the game. Imagine them browsing the store shelves. Only the most dumbed down concept and straight forward message is going to make it through. "Hey, lets buy Timmy a football game."
So something like Planescape Torment, which is one of the great RPGs of the modern PC era, is completely beyond most of the market. It offends parts of the market simply by context (a game played in the realm of the gods? Pagans!) and it has an appropriately ugly box cover of the Unnamed One. You can't install Torment as a "demo" in the store, because most people would see a static isomorphic view with no action, and walk on past.
Console RPG makers learned long ago that you have to sacrifice integrity to move product. Thus console RPGs have "over the top" limit break moves, FMV of sexy anime babes and leveling treadmills that makes the D&D system look tame.
Thoughtful storylines probably should take refuge in books. The era of the gaming geek being the majority gamer is over, and so the market follows the money. All I can hope is that a few publishers will weather the storm and be willing to sell to the niche. Of course, if you want worse, you should check the health of my other favorite type of game: the turn base strategy game. Thank goodness for game boy SP: without it, that style would be extinct.
Critial point: get dressed for work. I work from home (have for the last three years) and I wear my buisiness casual clothes. On days that I haven't changed, I find my focus is off. It also lets me get back into jeans at the end of the day, signifying the end of the work. There is something about clothing that can set the tone. Likewise, you need a different routine on "days off" than on days, otherwise it all blurs.
My main client is 125 miles away, so I only go onsite every other week, but it is a refreshing change, even if all we do is meetings.
Actually, I read it without edits, including the poorly executed singing. I read with character voices, and sadly mangle the already poor lyrics due to a lack of higher elvish education. That said, my comment was an attempt to get the hopeless "but they removed obscure reference 234 subsection a, paragraph 23" people to realize that the work they love is 45 hours long in totality. The fact that we are given extended versions that bring the movies up to 12 hours is an astounding tribute to the love being poured into the movies. But even at twelve hours, *something* has to give. (The "mass market" releases mean *more somethings* have to give). I'm just thankful a true fan of the works has handled the compression, and not someone who would have used cliff notes to render a 3 hour version of the full trilogy, wherein Frodo would have ended the movie in hand to hand combat with Sauron, and Gollum would have been a furry.
Gather round, for the true reason parts were cut from the book to the movie. You see, I read each book to my son before the movie comes out. At approximately 30 minutes a night, it takes a month plus to read *one* of the three books. That's 15 hours per book. Now I grant that a few pages of "majestic mountain description" can be cut down to a flight over some real ones in the movie, but on the other hand, some of the action takes longer on screen than in text (especially describing the inner state of a character, which in film must be *shown* not spoken).
Personally, I don't have the bladder control for a fifteen hour movie. Yes, now you know the real reason for cutting the film to three hours (four for those in the comfort on their own homes). Bladder control. Simple really.
I wonder if there is any way of "busting" urban myths. Even after I send people to various urban legend sites to combat the more annoying email variety, it seems some people are just credulous or just want a good story to tell. I suspect that the reality of it is irrelevant, and busted or not, the same stories with be with us for a very long time.
XBox was Microsoft's experiment to see how much of the living room they could potentially grab. They have the resources to pour into loser consoles for another generation with the larger goal of making something similar to the PSX (the PS2 with integrated Tivo functionality, etc). Frankly, I think the PSX is being made to simply prove that Microsoft is going to be behind in that space as well, considering it's price is a bit high for the consumer space.
Imagine you have a machine behind this thing that makes a SOAP call periodically to update some data. Boy, isn't it exciting to think about the new failure mode they just introduced? Port 80 now goes to belkin and possible provides the contents of your SOAP call to them?
The guy from Verisign get a new job after being fired over the DNS wildcards???
if ((options == (__DESTROYVEHICLE | __CRASHVEHCILE)) && (current->uid = 0)) {
disablevehicle(vid);
}
retval = -EINVAL;
You missed the point. The few people who are behind firewalls today in homes and small business are there because the NAT device *includes* a cheap firewall.
I have had very little luck convincing people and companies to purchase firewalls on the security only front. People are stupid when assessing risk.
However, show a company or user how they can run many computers off on one connection, and it happens to include some security, and they go for it. Your suggestion to "provide these users with a firewall" doesn't fly in the reality of a user base that would prefer to pinch pennies and clean up the mess later.
I have made it a requirement that my clients use a firewall if I will be responsible for any administrative tasks. It's lost me a few customers, but then they aren't the ones I want if they are that clueless. Apparently, from the impact of some of the recent worms, not many consultants are adamant about these things. So I appreciate any "accidental" security that happens.
Anime allows storytellers to explore sci-fi and fantasy genres without the budget breaking special effects, so they are common to see those genres expressed. But that isn't all that is done in the anime tradition. At the other end of the scale you can find sitcoms and love stories. Studio Ghibli is another great entry point into the style:
http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/films/
Just about anything here is good, but Kiki's Delivery Service and Spirited Away are two of my favorites. Kiki's has fantasy only insomuch as Kiki is a witch, but the storyline (something which American entertainment has forgotten about) is one of coming to terms with oneself.
Grave of the Fireflies is one of the most heart wrenching stories ever told in any style.
As for the overweight white guys: they are called otaku (fanboy) and are a part, but not the whole, of those who love the style. I'm in my mid thirties, married with a son, own my own company, am part owner of another and rock climb so I don't *get* fat. Not all those who watch anime are otaku.
To finally answer your question: animation allows for stories that would be difficult to tell in another way without breaking a budget. It also allows for artistic expression and styles that can't be captured with a camera. If American animators were blinded by the "for children only" mindset, amazing stories could be told here as well.
The Simpsons and the other "adult" cartooning have raised the bar a hair, but it only raises it to "sitcom" from "child humor". I would love to see an home grown cartoon that explored storylines written as well as those in good anime. (And no, Heavy Metal's psuedo porn doesn't count).
I love the original ghost because it convinces many who didn't think they would like anime that it isn't "just a cartoon". Although today anime is becoming "cool", when I was in high school it was pretty fringe. When ghost came out, I showed it to quite a few people who didn't know what anime was, and most had a much better appreciation for the fact that "cartoons" could tell a compelling story.
Of course, it isn't for the squeamish...
IP shortages forcing the creation of NAT actually turned out to be a good thing.
NAT has created the opportunity that most private boxes can be operated behind the integrated firewall that is normally provided by such devices. If the cable companies would provide the cable modem with NAT and modest firewalling instead of assigning public addresses to the uninformed masses, many of the recent insecurities would be *much* less critical.
In the best possible world, everyone would be running public addresses behind a properly configured firewall, with security patches addressed in a timely manner.
In the *real* world, we have unpatched machines directly accessible with little hope they will be addressed. I wish the NAT bashers would settle down. No, NAT and weak firewalls are not secure... but they are an order of magnitude better than hanging the clueless out in the wind like is currently done.
Those who moan about not being able to run the services they want should really learn about port mapping.
Of course, my cable company recently decided I can't even *send* to port 25 anymore, except for the cable company server... that has nothing to do with IP allocation or NAT. It has *everything* to do with the problem addressed above... if the company would supply a NAT box with firewalling, they could do the firewalling of 25 at the users computer, and the user could open an additional server without compromising the integrity of the Internet at large with virus laden beasts.
IP 6 will mean even more machines without even weak firewalls, meaning a more vulnerable environment for those without the clue to buy a firewall.
Actually, I have no problem with the God Formula Big Bang theory... but the earlier discussion was the "Intelligence Directed" evolution, which is different from "Initial Rules" evolution. I don't believe in a meddler. Either God is all seeing and can create the universe right in the first place, or he vanishes in a puff of logical smoke.
This was what triggered the comment, although I admit it was poorly executed due to timing. Science is the application of a critical eye to everything, including the currently held concepts. But more than that, it proves its worth by providing predictions, and then having those predictions proven or disproved. Neither is worse than the other: a disproved theory is still progress in science.
If you are watching The Elegant Universe on PBS, you will see that the primary argument against the string theorists is that they theories they propose contain no testable (in the reasonable future) concepts. What made Einstein so amazing was he came up with the consequences for the rules of gravity and light virtually out of whole cloth in his head. But his theory made predictions: if they had proved wrong, he would be barely a footnote.
Creationists refuse to submit to the rigors of prediction and testing. If evolution predicts there should be an animal of characteristic X in the record, finding it after such a prediction helps bolster the theory. Working with fruit flys and bacteria have allowed many of the concepts of evolution to be tested, and have help refine the theory. Creationists point to a book and a failed understanding of complexity theory, with little else to stand on. That attitude, in the guise of being "scientific" infuriates me.
You are correct. I almost deleted the last part but I hit submit while running out the door to pick up my son. Normally those kinds of stupid comments get edited out before then.
Thank you for that. Gradual transitions are pretty much accepted by science, and don't require miracles: something moderately useful can be selected for and adapted to high complexity very quickly *on the geological scale*. The difference from jumper to glider to flight isn't as big as the theologists would like you to believe. Good grief, we have flying fish, flying squirels and flying snakes. None of them actually fly (they glide) but if such diverse animals can independently become airborn, then it isn't much of a trick.
Similarly, the eye is often brought up as "but it wouldn't work if all the parts weren't there". Light sensitivity is useful unto itself, and the individual steps are simple once you have light sensitivity. Shutters for the light sensitive areas? Optical concentration of light? Each can be created independently, but surely those who get the combinations right are more "fit".
Of course, creationists come from the same school of thought as radical religionists everywhere: "don't think, don't make progress and whatever you do, don't argue with us. God told us were right."
I do find it interesting that the linked site has a retraction of the "Fox News is going to sue us" story. Perhaps a slashback is in order?
I did have to ask myself what the heck they were talking about. I guess a lot of XBox owners are further reducing the cost of the conversion project by boarding trucks while in traffic and absconding with Maxtor drives.
Avast ye scurvy trucker, prepare to be boarded!
The main problem I had when I received this is they seem to be really focused on the "Enterprise" aspect of this. I am a happy subscriber to the update service with a handful of servers. However, none of these boxes are really "servers" in the heavy duty use sense. We use them as firewalls, and one as a light duty PHP/mysql/web server for doing bug tracking, design documents, etc for the developers.
Under the old scheme, I was able to purchase the low end version and run it as a light duty web server. Now, looking at the product mix, it looks like they are taking the Microsoft 'your workstation isn't a web server' approach to stratification.
You hit the nail on the head when you mention Excel as a programming environment. Because the environment determines order of evaluation for you, you have a declarative language, and I think in the long run that is the key.
Procedural programming runs into complexity limits much more quickly, because the programmer is responsible for all of the interactions explicitly. Excel allows business people to work in their domain, using ideas that make sense because they were extracted from the domain. With the excessive computing power found on modern computers, the inefficiencies of declarative syntax can be accepted. A good example is SQL - a very small query can produce a very complex query plan and execute in a timely manner with today's databases. Because the core language is declarative, I can write a very complex query which would require pages of code to be written in a procedural language. Of course, there are limitations, and so you don't normally find SQL alone. Instead, you find it wrapped in a procedural language.
Similarly, you often find Excel spreadsheets with macros, with the macros performing the role of the procedural wrapper language for SQL. I believe the current ultimate expression of "ease of programming" is when you can create a custom declarative language in a domain (financial calculations, data access, etc) and then add some simple tools for sequencing the declarative actions.
Programs could then be written by domain specific users, and glued together with some high level interface code. In some ways, this is what Microsoft is trying to achive with Office for Developers tools: you build databases in SQL Server, do data entry and simple reporting via Access (which makes banging up an interface to data cake) or web forms, use analytical services for complex reporting, Excel for simple financial presentations (particularly for graphing), crystal reports for end user reporting, word for mail merge and formatting, IIS for web presentation of documents (either created on the fly in ASP or via SharePoint), etc.
In a preverse way, this is the old Unix "small tools, chained together" philosophy, except each tool is a swiss army knife with a chain saw attached. However, the correctness of the observation that chaining special purpose tools still remains valid, and valuable.
However, there are also major problems with this approach as described above. Especially when Office is updated: all your hard work scripting needs to be reviewed and revised because nearly every program will break something, somewhere.
I really doubt that MMORPGs will ever become mainstream, at least not the UO, Everquest, combat heavy ones. Having programmed MUDs back in the day, these exact discussions came up all the time, and the reality is that there are many flavors of gamers, and different games will appeal to different subsets. However, the "mainstream" gamer just flat out doesn't have time or interest to invest in a MMORPG.
I did have some hope that the Sims might be innovative enough to pull in the casual gamer, but it didn't happen. It appears that the "casual" gamer is happier with a chat window they can minimize when their boss/spouse/parent/etc walks by more than they want a full screen gui. Why? Because casual gamers see right trough the "game" (which doesn't interest them) and realize instinctively that this is a very attractive chat room.
Puzzle Pirates frankly has more hope because it plays on the favorite things of the casual gamer. Chatting and simple puzzle games. Popcap + AIM. Most "hardcore" gamers would prefer to be kneecapped than be caught playing something like that though, so I doubt the gaming press will see it for what it is.
While I admit is is an early version, it appears pretty clunky. All proposed edits are simply placed in a vote list... this means that votes have to be taken quickly to prevent different useful edits from being unable to merge.
Something more like CVS would be useful, where you can have different edits on different areas going at the same time, and the vote process could merge them together. Then again, perhaps for text that isn't as useful as code. But without such a feature, it's hard to call this "massive" collaborative documents, as the pending change list could easily spiral out of control.
This will have about as much impact as the talking coke machines and verbal notifications in cars: they will be vandalized or torn out. I can see some modest value in a display that shows where related items are, being a guy who doesn't go shopping often. I might actually use it. My wife who seems to have memorized the incoherent ordering would be annoyed I suspect. (Who is it who decides that bread and tortilla products are unrelated? That whipped cream *isn't* a dessert topping, fit to be displayed with all the others.)